A Few of the Historic Churches in Veliky Novgorod

Friday Aug 12, 2011 - Veliky Novgorod, Russia

Novgorod is known for beautiful and ancient churches. These historic churches are found all over the older part of the city with as many as four or five sitting next to each other.

The newer area of the city was swampland until the swamps were drained a decade or two ago and new housing built on it and this area is, for the most part devoid of churches.

However, considering that, according to my Father-in-Law the population of the city is only about 218,000 and the land area is small enough that one can walk from one side of the city to the other in 30 to 40 minutes. Of course many people have cars and buses are readily available so one can easily get to a church no matter where they live.

To the right and below are a few of the pictures I have taken of churches in Veliky Novgorod and nearby areas.

Despite the fact that I have seen and photographed many more, I would probably need another two weeks or more to simply visit and photograph all of the ancient churches in the area where I am now writing this.

And to really tour and enjoy all of them would take another month or more.

Some of the photos here are not identified by name. I have photos of the names and other information about them from the signs and plaques attached to them. However, all of this information is not only in Russian but written in the Cyrillic alphabet rather than the Latin alphabet we use in Western Europe and North America.

I am totally illiterate when it comes to the Russian language and its alphabet. However, I am not without resources as my wife, Bella, is fluent in both languages and translates everything for me.

Unfortunately, as I write this, I am sitting in the lobby of our hotel where the WiFi is located while my wife is upstairs in our room trying to figure out how to pack all of the purchases from her shopping.

Our time on this trip has been divided between visiting family, touring the sites and shopping.

Since we did all of our touring and shopping together, I have sufficient information and photos for a Hub on shopping in Novgorod which I will publish as soon as I find time to write it.